Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

exist today. The fear of God is banished from human hearts. His law
is treated with indifference and contempt. "For as in the days before
the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know
until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming
of the Son of Man be" (Matthew 24:38, 39). God did not condemn
the pre-Flood generation for eating and drinking. He had given the
fruits of the earth to meet their physical wants. Their sin was in
taking these gifts without gratitude to the Giver, indulging appetite
without restraint. It was lawful to marry. He gave special directions
concerning this relationship, clothing it with holiness and beauty,
but marriage was perverted and made to serve passion.
Similar Conditions Today
A similar condition exists today. Appetite is indulged without
restraint. Professed followers of Christ are eating and drinking with
the drunken. Intemperance numbs the moral and spiritual powers
and prepares for indulgence of the lower passions. Multitudes
become slaves of lust, living for the sensual pleasures. Extravagance
saturates society. People sacrifice integrity for luxury and display.
Fraud, bribery, and theft go unrebuked. The media report many
crimes so cold-blooded that it seems as though every instinct of
humanity were blotted out. And these atrocities have become so
common that they hardly produce surprise. The pent-up fires of
lawlessness, having once escaped control, will fill the earth with
woe and desolation. The pre-Flood world represents the condition to
which modern society is rushing.
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